


Fidelis

by Bullfinch



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: M/M, Mutual Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-29
Updated: 2016-08-29
Packaged: 2018-08-10 11:56:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,913
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7843975
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bullfinch/pseuds/Bullfinch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Gabriel is captured by Overwatch. He's offered a deal to rejoin the organization but is barred from the front lines, allowed only to guide Overwatch in sabotaging his old employer, Talon.</p><p>Jack's not happy about the deal. Which is fine. Gabriel doesn't plan to be around for very long anyway.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fidelis

**Author's Note:**

> Different universe/timeline/whatever than my previous Reaper76 fic.

_Gabriel knows he fucked up even before the truck explodes, is already thinking of how pissed Jack will be—_ what were you thinking, Gabe, leading them off with the mines set _—as the force of the blast lifts him off his feet. The explosion is a deafening_ boom _, a snap-quick roar of flames, and metal screaming as the Talon truck is dismembered. Gabriel is hurled into a tree, his skull bouncing off the thick pine trunk. Something slams into his leg, spinning him half around before he thuds into the frozen ground, dazed._

_That hurt. But he can’t lie here. They might be after him._

_His vision won’t focus but he spots the movement out of the corner of his eye, goes for the pistol at his hip but it got twisted up in his belt somehow in the blast. Then the soldier is on him. A woman, by the timbre of her grunt when her knee rams into his middle and she slides her legs out over his hips to pin him._

_That hurt too, the knee to his gut. But she’s trying to stab him so he struggles to focus, knocks the blow off-center. The blade slices through the Kevron vest but skates off his ribs and buries itself in the dirt. Gabriel plants a foot and rocks his hips—can’t quite buck her, but he rolls onto the knife and breaks her grip._

_She pulls out another knife. Gabriel swears at her and raises his arms to block. Then there’s a sharp clapping noise and she jerks and collapses forward._

_Gabriel shoves her off of him. “Sorry.”_

_Jack jogs forward, slinging his pulse rifle onto his back. “What the hell were you thinking?!”_

_Gabriel cracks a smile. “I was thinking I could pull it off. I was half right.”_

_He’s expecting a retort but when Jack arrives his face freezes in horror. Fuck. “What is it?” Gabriel rasps._

_“Your leg’s fucked,” Jack mutters, kneeling._

_Gabriel raises his head. Oh. It is kind of fucked. The knee’s bent the wrong way and the foot’s pointing sideways and there’s blood soaking through his pants already at his calf. “Ah—“ He reaches down and grasps his thigh. Something’s wrong there too. “Fuck, fuck, it hurts—“_

_“It’s okay, Gabe, we’re gonna get you out of here.” Jack digs in his pack. Above them the sound of helicopters off in the distance, getting louder._

——

“Gabe.” Thumping on the glass.

Gabriel stirs with a groan.

He was trying to forget he was here but it wasn’t working very well. The heat’s still there, like a fever but a hundred times worse; warmth pours off of him and there aren’t any vents in the goddamn cell so he’s just sitting in it with sweat dripping down his forehead, his back and ribs. His clothes are heaped in the corner where he pulled them off as soon as the bastards dumped him here.

“Wake up.” Another thump. “You don’t get to nap.”

Gabriel tries to move. It’s hard. He’s been electrocuted before and this isn’t as bad but it just _doesn’t fucking stop._ Hurts, yeah, but mostly it’s just extremely uncomfortable, makes him want to squirm and writhe but that doesn’t do a goddamn thing to relieve it. And he can barely move anyway. His body isn’t cooperating. The impulses run too slow.

 _“Hey._ You listening to me?”

“I’m trying,” Gabriel growls, and pushes himself upright.

Jack’s got an arm propped up against the glass, and he glowers into the cell. “You gonna help us out?”

Gabriel settles back against the wall, clenching and unclenching his fists. “You gonna turn off this fucking field?”

That’s how they trapped him on the train—he saw some glimmering blue device dropping through a hatch into the car and then he was on the ground. Tried to dissolve, but his body wouldn’t obey him. The guns were useless—he could barely crawl, let alone aim.

They transported him like that. They stuck him in this glass-walled cell like that. He doesn’t know how many hours it’s been.

“No,” Jack replies.

Gabriel pulls together a grin. “You torture your prisoners now, Jack? Maybe you should have joined Blackwatch too.”

Jack’s fist slams into the glass. That was enough to get a rise out of him? He must be pissed. “Come on, we’re not _torturing_ you!”

“Sure as fuck feels like it!” Gabriel snarls. “Let’s electrocute _you_ for—I don’t fucking know how long and see if you don’t start begging out!”

“I don’t _trust_ you, Gabe!” Jack snaps.

Gabriel tries to punch the floor, manages a weak tap. “The cell’s fucking sealed! I can’t escape anyway! Just—turn it off, have an ounce of fucking decency. Jesus.” He barely gets the words out, his tongue grown thick and clumsy.

Jack glares a minute more, then shoves himself off the glass and goes over to the corner of the cell where the metal frame blocks Gabriel’s view.

The electromagnetic field disappears.

Gabriel slumps, gasping in breaths. It’s gone. The heat, the electricity searing his unnatural body. He presses a hand to his eyes because he thinks he might be tearing up and there’s no fucking way he’s letting Jack see that.

“You okay?”

Gabriel squints out. Jack shifts uncomfortably, eyes dropping to the floor. Whatever. He’ll take it. “Fine,” Gabriel mutters, sitting up. Fucking nanomachines. He’d bet that field was Dr. Ziegler’s work. She’s the one who made him this way in the first place, after all.

“So?” Jack nods at him. “You gonna talk to us?”

Gabriel hides a chuckle. “Yeah, but I got a condition. See, Talon doesn’t like it when an operative gets captured. Makes ‘em think the guy mighta flipped.”

“So, what? You want protection?”

Gabriel grins. “Protect me and I’ll give you whatever you want. Talon was a means to an end, I don’t give a shit about them.”

Jack starts to say something, then stops and cocks his head. Earpiece. Gabriel waits.

 _“What?”_ Another pause, and Jack levels a baleful glare at Gabriel. “New deal. We protect you from Talon. And you…” He breaks off and rubs his forehead, his lip curling. “You work for us again. In a _probationary_ capacity.”

There’s a weird surge of nerves in Gabriel’s chest that washes out into a deep ache he wishes would go away. Jack’s expression opens a little in surprise, which lets Gabriel know he must have shown something on his own fucking face. _Joder._ “Yeah, fine,” he says curtly.

Jack’s eyes narrow again in anger. “Guess I’ll go get you a room.”

He turns and leaves, the steel door sliding shut behind him. Gabriel stares at his palm. He feels…fluid. That shouldn’t be happening yet.

_They want me to join Overwatch again._

A little wisp of black smoke rises from the web of his thumb. Definitely not normal. But maybe it’s just as well.

——

_After the sixth hail without reply, Jack taps his earpiece and grasps Gabriel’s arm where it’s slung around his neck. “Something’s wrong.”_

_Gabriel snorts, hobbling forward as best he can over the carpet of dead leaves. The bad leg’s straight up busted, but they did get the bones back inside him and wrapped it up so they shouldn’t be popping out again. “Yeah, no shit. What gave it away?”_

_“We have to assume the extraction team’s down,” Jack mutters._

_Gabriel grimaces, a mist of breath gusting out from between his teeth. “Fucking knew it. Something was off about this whole thing from the start.”_

_Jack glances over but doesn’t reply._

_Gabriel rolls his eyes. “Come on, Jack. They knew where we were gonna be and when we were gonna be there. Otherwise I wouldn’t have had to lead them onto the fucking mines. I know you wanna think Overwatch is perfect and no one would ever sell out, but someone sold the fuck out.”_

_“It could have been luck,” Jack ventures._

_“Jack, for fuck’s sake, you know it wasn’t luck. You_ know _. Ah, fuck, that fucking_ hurts.” _He reaches down and grasps the bad leg, steeling himself against the shocks of pain, breathing through the nausea that comes on its heels._

_“Are you okay?” Jack asks, alarmed. “Do you need a rest?”_

_“No, I don’t need a fucking rest!” Gabriel snaps. “I need to get out of this fucking taiga before they hunt us down like rabbits!”_

_“Yeah, sorry. You’re right.”_

_Gabriel shuts his eyes. “Fuck. I didn’t mean to yell at you. Just in a lot of pain.”_

_“I can tell. You’re swearing a blue streak.” He grins. “Your mom would be pissed.”_

_Gabriel can’t help smiling. “How dare you bring my mother into this.”_

_An echoed shout far behind them. Gabriel flinches. He knows what he has to say even though he really doesn’t want to say it. The operation compromised. Talon on their trail. No extraction team. His leg blasted to shit. But Jack’s okay. “Hey, Jack.”_

_“Hm?”_

_“You gotta leave me behind.”_

——

Gabriel spends a lot of time in his room with the lights off.

They have cameras everywhere, he knows that. But they won’t see what they’re not looking for, if he can do _just_ enough to hide it. When Jack’s team does go on a mission he has to make his way to the command center, so he puts up the hood on his sweatshirt and stands in front of everyone else so they don’t see his face when his hold slips on the nano machines and the illusion drops away. But beyond that he never comes out of his room.

Reinhardt wants to talk to him. He knows that because Jack hammers on his door and yells it. Gabriel replies that he’s not interested and to leave him alone. Jack tries again a few days later. Gabriel gives him the same response.

The missions go well. Remarkably well. On the giant screen Gabriel sees Jack’s triumphant grin when the location is secured and all agents taken into custody.

Then he goes back to his room.

After the second mission Jack knocks on his door and says he’s grabbing dinner and does Gabe want to come along. Gabriel snorts and says “No,” and Jack snarls “Fine,” and leaves.

It works until Jack hammers on his door one morning and calls, “Get out here, you're coming with us on this one."

Gabriel amasses himself, forcefully projects a response. _“What?”_

“Long-range transmission’s gonna be compromised. We need you in a van on-site. Your gear’s right here.” A loud _thud._

Gabriel’s frozen while he listens to the footsteps retreating. Fuck. He can’t exactly say no. Then they’ll break in here and drag him out and this will all have been for nothing.

Well, he still has the mask. That’ll have to be enough. He scoops it off the desk. Damn it all. He just needed another couple of days.

Nothing to be done. With great effort he gathers himself, pokes his head out the door, and drags the pile of gear inside. Standard uniform, just like the one he used to wear. He puts his sweatshirt on under the Kevron vest so he can pull the hood up. Then the mask, bone-pale, seamed a little with age. He goes over to the mirror.

The mask’s black eyes stare back at him, tinted dully with red. If it weren’t for that he could be the same man he was fifteen years ago. With one gloved finger he traces the Overwatch symbol embroidered into the front of the vest.

It hides him well enough. Gabriel picks up his bag and heads for the door.

As he approaches the hub he hears he distorted mumble of voices, tainted with electronic fuzz, the volume wobbling. Not supposed to sound like that. But he only has so much control left and he’d rather spend it on maintaining this shape, two arms, two legs, a trunk, about six feet high in all (he used to be taller, years ago). Then he steps out of the hallway and into the hub.

It looks like the old hub—a round room twenty feet across with a high ceiling, gentle blue lights glowing in the walls, and in the center the hologram table, with maps, schematics, and pieces of information floating above it in the disarray characteristic of Jack’s briefings. Everyone’s there already, of course: Jack, Dr. Ziegler, Reinhardt, Jesse, and a few faces he knows vaguely, having moved to Blackwatch before they were assigned—Lena, the cyborg, the scientists Mei and Winston. Strange to see them all like this, only a couple of yards away, real and alive; for a moment he swears it’s a memory. Jack’s talking but all eyes slide past him and straight to Gabriel as soon as he steps through the doorway.

No one waves. Gabriel smiles to himself (or approximates the motion, at least) behind his mask.

Jack turns, his jaw set in anger, but his voice is almost mocking. “Nice of you to show.”

Gabriel’s vocal cords are gone, his lips and tongue half-formed at best. So the words come out through precise vibrations of his particulate body. Like a speaker, he thinks, with a twinge of repulsion. He hopes they’ll put the strange quality off as a factor of the mask. “Trust me, I don’t want me here either.”

Jack snorts. “No shit. Haven’t seen you out of your goddamn room once since you got here.”

“Of course you haven’t,” Gabriel retorts. “Do you think I _want_ to see you?”

That makes Jack step up, his eyes alight with fury, the same bright blue as the lights around them. “Don’t want to see _me?_ You don’t want to see anyone! We gave you a deal to bring you back in but you’re making yourself a goddamn prisoner!”

Gabriel broadcasts a laugh. “You think any of _them_ want to see me?” He gestures at the others. “I’ve shot at most of them! None of them want me anywhere near this organization, let alone coming out to _make friends—“_

“And you haven’t done a goddamn thing to change that! You’re just—hiding! Look at you, you can’t even face us without your goddamn mask on!” Jack’s hand whips out.

Gabriel grabs his wrist but his own grip is weak, his fingers liquid inside the gloves. Jack ignores him, grabs the mask and rips it off.

Gabriel tries to cover his face (what’s left of it) but it’s too late, because the other faces around him have opened up in surprise or fear or both (or neither, Jack’s expression—Gabriel refuses to look at him).

He knows why.

He looked at himself in the mirror this morning before putting the mask on, tried to shape what he saw into something presentable. Didn’t get far. A pair of eyespots glowing in dull red; then a set of teeth, much easier to maintain since he started building them out of empty bone matrix and leaving out the cells. Although he did have to make them pointed like animals’ teeth so they would lock together instead of sliding all over each other. Awkwardly static in the shifting black mass of his face, especially since he doesn’t use them to talk. He thought it would be better than nothing, although that might have been a mistake. Hasn’t had a lot of practice with interpersonal interactions recently. It’s too late to put together a normal face—not that he could hold it for long, but he wishes he’d had some warning.

His hand drops. They’ve already seen. Might as well let them stare.

“Gabe.” Jack’s voice has gone soft. Goddamn him, of _course_ he looks _worried._ “What happened to you? Two weeks ago you were fine.”

Gabriel shrugs. “I got worse.”

“But you—what’s going on? Why are you…”

“Dissolving? That’s kind of what happens.” Something catches the corner of his eye—a figure in white, standing perfectly still. Dr. Ziegler. The only one who doesn’t seem all that surprised to see him like this. He nods at her. “You want to elaborate? _Doctor?”_

She presses her lips together. “I’m not sure now is a good time. Perhaps after the mission.”

 _“Time?”_ He lets out a staticky cackle. “That’s fine, but if you wait much longer you might not get the chance.”

“What do you mean?” Jack demands.

“What do you think I mean, Jack?” Gabriel says dismissively. “I’m dying.”

Jack doesn’t have a reply to that.

“It was the explosion,” Dr. Ziegler cuts in. “Wasn’t it?”

“Yeah,” Gabriel murmurs.

“The machines are not supposed to store biotic information,” she says. “Their programming, yes. Your cognition, yes, an active process. Beyond that they are supposed to learn from their surroundings. Your body. But that was destroyed in the explosion. They have been managing on their own, albeit poorly, it seems.” She frowns. “How did you reconstruct yourself after the explosion if your body was destroyed?”

Yes. His shameful secret. Not that it matters anymore. “Found another body.”

“But if it were…” Then she nods in understanding. “It was recently dead.”

“Yeah. Me and Jack forgot to clear the building before we started shooting.”

“Obviously that body was not enough.”

“No. This…” He gestures at himself. “…started a couple of weeks later.”

“So you found another corpse.”

He shrugs. “Made one. Sold my skills to someone with a business rival they needed out of the way.”

“You _killed someone_ for that?” Jack interrupts. “Why didn’t you just—“

“Recently dead, Jack!” Gabriel snaps. “I wait too long, there’s too much damage and it doesn’t work!”

“Well, how long is too long?” Jack asks.

Gabriel laughs again. There’s an electronic buzz on his voice now that he doesn’t bother to fix. “Five minutes. Less.”

Jack just stares at him, and for a moment there’s only silence in the small room. Dr. Ziegler has that thoughtful frown on her face again. Gabriel’s eyes drop to the ground. “If you’d waited a day or two this wouldn’t have mattered,” he mutters.

Jack turns. “Winston. Can you pull this off three men down? Or—two men and Angela.”

Winston blinks. “Uh—I think so.”

“Good. Do it. Brief me when you get back.”

“Got it.” Then he’s leaving the room as quickly as he can, followed by the rest of the company (Jesse looking over his shoulder, and Reinhardt lingers in the doorway but leaves them as well).

Some of the tension slides out of Jack’s posture, and he shifts on his feet. “So what happens if you don’t find a body in time?”

“The cognition process will cease,” Dr. Ziegler explains. “The machines need the cellular environment for energy. Without that, they will simply run out of fuel. It was best that way, I thought. How terrible it would be for one’s mind to continue on as a pile of tiny machines, unable to move, unable to communicate one’s needs or even one’s existence to others.”

Jack grunts, his gaze lingering on Gabriel, on his abhorrent face.

Dr. Ziegler lets out a small sigh. “Do you mean to procure a fresh corpse? We do have some rather…. _deplorable_ individuals in the cells—“

 _“No,_ Angela, we’re not killing anyone.” He glances at her, then turns back to Gabriel. “Would it work on a living person?”

Gabriel cocks his head. “Can’t see why it wouldn’t. Never tried it before.”

“Okay. You’re going to try it on me.”

——

_“No,” Jack says in a conversational tone and doesn’t break his pace._

_So Gabe has to do it, planting his one good foot and bringing them to a halt. “Yes, Jack! They’re gonna be on us in five minutes and I’m two hundred and twenty pounds of dead weight!”_

_“No you’re not,” Jack replies steadily. “You’re a soldier of Overwatch and you’re my best goddamn friend in the whole world, Gabe, I’m not leaving you behind.”_

_With a growl of frustration Gabriel starts walking again because they can’t afford to lose what little head start they have. “They’re going to catch up to us. We’re both going to die. At least if you get out of here only one of us has to pay for this fucked-up mission.”_

_“I’m not leaving you to die.” There’s an edge on his voice now. “Don’t ask me to do that.”_

_“Well, you can’t fucking escape on foot dragging me behind you!”_

_“I know. We’re going to find a place to hide.”_

_“And wait for_ what? _The extraction team’s dead!”_

_Jack shrugs a little. “A miracle?” He puts on a lopsided smile._

_Gabriel spots the muted fear. But Jack’s a stubborn son of a gun at the best of times. “Jack. This is serious. I don’t want you to die for my sake.”_

_“Well, I would want that. So you’re just going to have to accept it.”_

_“Damnit, Jack, this isn’t even one life for another! You’re dying just to give me a—a sliver of a chance!”_

_“Yes! I’d die for that!” Jack shoots back._

_That stuns Gabriel into silence. It doesn’t make any goddamn sense. The choice is clear. Two deaths or one._

_Clear for Jack. He halts and nods at one of the piles of boulders that dot the forest. “Stay here a sec.”_

_Then he’s setting Gabriel down and going to inspect the rocks. Gabriel sits with his leg straightened out, grasping his thigh. The ache is bad, and he doesn’t know how long the painkillers Jack jabbed in there will last._

_Doesn’t fucking matter. The extraction team’s dead. This whole exercise is pointless._

_Jack scrambles up the rock pile. In the distance there’s a shout in Russian. Definitely closer. Gabriel checks his hip. He untangled the pistol after that incident with the Talon soldier. Eighteen bullets in the magazine, and he’s got three extra clips with him—his combat rifle lost during that clusterfuck with the trucks. How many can he bring down? Would it be enough to save them?_

_Then Jack is there, pulling him to his feet. “There’s a space in there. You can’t see it from the side, but I think we can get in from above.”_

_“Jack.” Gabriel grabs his arm, squeezing. “Please don’t do this. Please just go.”_

_“I already told you, don’t ask me to do that.” Jack helps him hobble over to the rock pile._

_Getting him up the boulders is tough—Gabriel feels the bandage tighten around his shin and realizes it’s because the broken ends of bone have poked out again and are stretching it from the back. The nausea hits him a second later and makes him buckle so Jack practically hoists Gabriel onto his back and climbs up that way. At the top Jack wriggles down through the crack first so that he can yank on Gabriel’s good leg and drag him down (“why’s your ass gotta be so goddamn big,” Gabriel hears him grumble, and the words draw a weak smile). The space is incredibly cramped, not high enough for them to stand and not big enough to allow Gabriel to straighten his bad leg, so he has to bend it. Suppressing the shouts of pain is far too difficult so he compromises, humiliating whines and choked noises filling the small cranny as he lowers himself to the leaves. His eyes are wet with tears by the time the operation is finished, and he scrubs at them, frustrated. Jack shouldn’t see him like this._

_“Hey, Gabe.” Jack is close to him, has to be in the tiny space. He wraps an arm around Gabriel’s back. “I got you.”_

_Gabriel nods and exhales. His breath clouds in the cold air._

_Another shout in Russian. Hard to tell through the rock, but Gabriel gauges it at a half-mile away, maybe less._

_——_

He tries to chuckle but it levels off into an electronic tone at the end. “Yeah, about that. You don’t see the bodies when I’m done with them. This isn’t the kind of thing you live through.”

“You know what they did to us in the enhancement program. My chances aren’t as bad as you think.”

 _“You don’t see the bodies!”_ It’s a rush of static, one Gabriel struggles to control.

“And that’s why Angela’s going to help me survive it,” Jack responds, cool as ever.

Dr. Ziegler blinks. “I—ah. Well, all right.”

“Come on. We’ll do this in the infirmary.” Jack jerks his head and brushes past Gabriel, followed by Dr. Ziegler.

Gabriel spins, pursuing. “Jack—are you out of your fucking _mind?_ I mean, if you’re sick of running Overwatch again and you’re looking for a way out—“

“No, I’m glad Overwatch is back and I plan to do a better job this time,” Jack replies evenly. He walks so fast Dr. Ziegler must jog to keep up.

“Jack, _you’re going to die!”_

“Maybe,” Dr. Ziegler puts in. “I do have—some ideas.”

“Ideas like the one that turned me into _this?”_ Gabriel snarls, a harsh cracke distorting the words.

“That was a long time ago,” she says with mild annoyance. “I have learned since then.”

“You really expect me to trust you now?”

“I trust her,” Jack cuts in. “And that’s all that matters.”

Gabriel finds the situation quickly slipping out of his control. “Jack. This doesn’t make sense. Look—you don’t understand, the bodies I take from, they’re— _withered—“_

“I get it, Gabe.”

“We don’t even know if it’ll work! You’re throwing your life away on a _theory!_ Can you just use your fucking head for one goddamn second—“

“I am, Gabe! I know the risks, I know I could die, I _know!_ Jesus Christ.”

 _Then why are you doing it?_ The words passed around and around the intangible circuits of Gabriel’s electromagnetic brain. _We hate each other. We killed each other once. So what’s changed?_

Jack shrugs the coat off his back as he elbows open the door to the infirmary, tosses the coat in the corner with his Kevron vest following it and then the sturdy uniform shirt. His undershirt is worn, the hem fraying. Surely he can afford new ones. Dr. Ziegler is already heading to the terminal in the back. “Just a moment. I need to call up the correct programming.”

Jack lies down on the examination bed, looking a little irritated but otherwise relaxed. What the hell’s wrong with him? “Jack,” Gabriel tries, one last time.

“For _Christ’s_ sake, Gabe, we’re doing this, okay? That’s it. I’m done arguing.”

Dr. Ziegler appears again with a vial of smoky white liquid and an IV kit. “Excuse me.”

Gabriel sits back and lets her work. He could refuse to go through with it. But then Jack would be even more pissed and it would all get fucked up again, and he doesn’t want it to get worse.

 _We killed each other once. So what’s changed?_ Not only Jack wanting to risk his life for Gabriel. But also Gabriel not wanting him to do that now. For some reason. Some fucking reason.

It wasn’t his shot that took the base. It was Jack’s, a careless blast from the pulse rifle—not so careless, it was well-aimed, but Gabriel dodged and one of the generator lines was right behind him. He had less than a second to realize what had happened before the blast disintegrated him. Doesn’t know how Jack survived—he couldn’t spare the time to look when his consciousness rebooted and he was slithering over the rubble in a desperate search for an intact corpse to consume. In the years afterward he could never place himself in that moment when his shotguns were in hand and the barrel of Jack’s pulse rifle was still pointed toward the ground, but only just. He can’t remember now who raised their weapon first, but it seems impossible that it could ever have come to that. Jack once meant more to him than anyone else in the world, knew him better than he knew himself. There was so much more they should have—

 _It’s too late,_ Gabriel reminds himself. He had plenty of chances but he never took them and then he fucked it all up and it’s beyond saving. That’s all there is to it.

Jack grunts and flinches. Gabriel looks up. Dr. Ziegler is pushing a syringe of the white liquid through the IV. “That should help you rebuild what he destroys. But it’s not going to last long. I suggest you begin, Gabriel.”

Jack grimaces. “Feels weird.”

Gabriel rises and lets out a sigh, a rush of static. “It’s about to get weirder.”

Jack cracks a smile. Gabriel hurries the moment past him and steps up, pulling off his gloves. His hands are black and misshapen, sagging as they slip out of the gloves. Droplets fall from the tips and evaporate into smoke. He can’t remember the last time he let it get this bad.

“Come on,” Jack murmurs. “You heard her, this stuff’s not going to last.”

“Jack, I…” _I don’t want to do this. Don’t make me do this._

“Come on,” Jack growls.

Gabriel’s hand drifts through the air and lands on his chest.

His body is starved for it, and the black machines seep through Jack’s undershirt in a split-second. Jack jerks and goes tense all at once, his knuckles whitening around the sides of the bed. Sheets of darkness pour across Gabriel’s vision. He doesn’t have a sense to receive the information the nanites are gathering now, so it bypasses sense and goes straight to interpretation. _Tearing._ Jack’s body being scavenged. _Building._ Stronger. He’s getting stronger. More substantial _._ _Deeper_. The nanites burrow and ravage, and waves of relief splash over him as he finally starts to feel real again. But Jack’s body is being devoured. Destroyed.

The black falls transiently from his vision, giving him brief flashes of what’s going on in front of him. Jack’s face. He sees that. Crumpled. In pain. There’s something wrong. “Jack,” Gabriel says, a deep bass note that thrums down to his feet. He gathers his scattered hand and lifts it away—

Jack grabs his sleeve. “Don’t you dare,” he growls, and yanks Gabriel back down.

Gabriel catches himself with both hands on Jack’s chest. The nanites dive hungrily through the cotton shirt. Jack gasps—Gabriel closer now, and he can see the lines on Jack’s face as it tightens in pain. Still he rasps out, “You gotta finish this, Gabe.”

Gabriel feels the machines spreading. Can he do it? Can he do this to Jack again?

“Please. You have to trust me,” Jack whispers.

There’s a strange moment of stillness, an eye in the roiling storm that surrounds him. That comprises him. Jack is the anchor, holding him steady when he might otherwise be borne away, wave-tossed on the tide. Their gazes lock. Black laps at the edges of Gabriel’s vision, his sliver of sight retreating further and further beneath the murk. But through it Jack’s lightning-blue eyes stay with him, a spot of brightness in the hungry dark.

_You have to trust me._

Gabriel holds onto it as best he can while the waves carry him out. 

——

_Footsteps crunch past on the leaves just outside. Gabriel catches snatches of Russian through the haze of pain. The injection’s definitely wearing off. He presses a hand to his mouth and tries to keep his breaths quiet. The footsteps pass by. Jack’s arm tightens a little around his shoulders in reassurance. A couple of minutes later and the blunt noise of a helicopter passes over them._

_They have to stay here. And they have to stay quiet. That’s all that’s left now. Either they’re found and killed, or they aren’t found and make their way out—and then what? Any transmission longer than the taps they use for hailing will be tracked right back to their location. So they have to survive alone in the Siberian taiga until they_ think _they’re out of Talon’s effective range?_

_Gabriel sucks in air through his teeth as a wave of agony radiates from his busted leg. The evap packing is starting to strain against the bandage. The injury’s still bleeding. No way he’ll make it that far._

_He shivers._

_More footsteps. They’re calling to each other. Gabriel catches a few of the words._ Far. Keep looking. Injured. _Fuck. They know he got caught in that explosion. They know he and Jack are hiding, not running. He sits very still, taking long, shuddering breaths. The footsteps leave, and then a few minutes later they’re back again. The light that seeps through the cracks in the rock is dying._

_It shouldn’t end here. Not like this._

_Gabriel leans into Jack’s chest. The pain is awful and he doesn’t have the energy to suppress both that and the fear. He doesn’t want to die. He doesn’t want Jack to die. There are so many things he should have done—so much he still_ wants _to do, and most of those things are with Jack. Ten years they’ve known each other and Gabriel’s been wasting his goddamn time. The footsteps retreat again. Gabriel waits a moment and then whispers, “I’m sorry.”_

_“No, don’t do that. Don’t apologize.” Jack’s voice breaks a little, and his hand finds Gabriel’s in the dark space. “It’s okay, Gabe. I know.”_

_Gabriel turns his face into Jack’s shoulder and squeezes his fingers. If there’s nothing else here—if there’s only darkness and Talon soldiers and the endless taiga for miles and miles and miles around—at least there’s Jack. And that’s enough to keep him steady, the pain and fear clawing and tearing at him but gaining no purchase. Instead it’s Jack’s arm around him, holding him close._

_He doesn’t know how many hours pass. The evening passes into night and flashlights glow through the seams between boulders, and Gabriel stays still as a stone and prays to whatever higher powers exist that Talon doesn’t spot them. After each sweep he relaxes a fraction only to tense again, and feel Jack tensing against him, when the flashlights return. The back of his pant leg is sticky with blood, the evap packing long since saturated._

_Sometime between one of these intrusions and the next Jack gasps in relief and presses a hand to his ear. “The extraction team,” he whispers. “They were attacked, but they escaped and made repairs. We’re gonna get out of here, Gabe. We’re gonna be okay.”_

_——_

Jack is drawn and pale, asleep in a private room in the back of the infirmary. He looks old. Worn.

Gabriel sits in the armchair next to him, dozing. Scavenging a body is like eating a very large meal. He needs time to digest all the information.

Jack sleeps like the dead. Gabriel glances up now and then to check the monitor. Vital signs are okay. He’s got IV drips in to keep his heart rate and blood pressure up. Still breathing all right.

Gabriel’s eyes drift closed.

When they open again it’s an hour later and Jack’s still asleep but one of his hands is on Gabriel’s knee so he must have woken up for a bit there. Gabriel rests his hand just beside Jack’s. His fingers aren’t liquid and black anymore—his hand looks normal, brown and calloused.

Dr. Ziegler sticks her head in now and then, looks at the monitor, presses her fingers to Jack’s neck, makes some notes on her tablet and leaves. Gabriel has questions for her but not the energy to ask them. _Did you know this would happen to me? Did you do this to anyone else?_

He dozes. His body feels warm and heavy.

When he wakes up someone is gently shaking his knee. Gabriel scrubs at his eyes and squints.

Jack gazes back at him. “Hey.”

Gabriel sits up. “Hey.”

“Is there any food in this place?” His voice is weak. “I’m starving.”

So Gabriel goes to the door and calls for Dr. Ziegler, and she shows up with a juice box and four cups of applesauce. “These will have to do for now. I’ll go get you something more substantial.” She dumps them on the side table. “How are you feeling?”

“Like I just got run through a wood chipper,” Jack mumbles.

“Ah. I’ll make a note of that.” Her eyes flick between him and Gabriel, and she lets out a small sigh. “Well, let me go get that meal for you.”

Then she leaves them. Jack peels the lid off one of the cups and tips it back, draining it. Gabriel sits again, unsure what to say. _Sorry I almost killed you even though you asked for it?_

Jack sets down the empty cup. “Gabe,” he says.

He looks up. “Yeah?”

“I don’t want to do this anymore.”

Is he—tearing up? Gabriel sits closer. “Don’t want to do what?”

“I don’t want to hate you. I’m tired of it. I just want things to go back to how they used to be between us.” His hand is on Gabriel’s knee again. “I’m sorry for pushing back against you. I shouldn’t have fought you, but I was stupid and proud and it sure as hell wasn’t worth losing my best friend over. And I shouldn’t have— _fuck,_ I can’t believe I pulled my rifle on you. I don’t care how much we were at each other’s throats back then—“

“Hey, you weren’t the only one who drew,” Gabriel cuts in. “And I shouldn’t…” He runs a hand through his thick curls of hair. “I should have just _talked_ to you. But I didn’t really do the swallow-your-pride thing back then.” He lets out a long breath. While he’s in a confessing mood… “When you offered me that deal to join up, I got excited again about where I was going next. I haven’t felt that way in years. Since we started fighting. What I did with Blackwatch, and what I’ve done since—I was _good_ at it, but I just felt like…a machine.” Which he _was,_ and is, and he always thought—hoped—that had something to do with it. Didn’t like to think about how it might just be he’d given up on himself.

“Gabe.” Jack’s face creases. “You should have told us you were dying. We could have helped earlier.”

Gabriel snorts. “No one wanted me here. I thought it would be better if I just…evaporated.”

“I wanted you here.” He squeezes Gabriel’s knee. “I should’ve just said it. Shouldn’t have been such an ass.”

“I wasn’t making it any easier on you,” Gabriel reminds him with a half-smile.

Jack grins. “Never thought I’d see that again.”

“What?”

“You smiling.”

Gabriel’s breath hitches. Jack catches it a second later and withdraws his hand. A little too close, toeing the line they never crossed.

But Gabriel’s done wasting years. “Hey, Jack.”

“Yeah?”

“Can we do it right this time?”

Jack’s tearing up again, the soft-hearted bastard, but he nods so Gabriel leans down and kisses him for the very first time.

Suddenly he’s not lying to himself anymore, not giving up, not struggling under the guilt and shame that have built up over the years like silt down a black river. He’s doing something _right,_ fixing the piece that has sat just a little off-kilter for thirty years. He wants to laugh but doesn’t want to break away so he laughs into Jack’s mouth and Jack runs a hand through Gabriel’s hair and kisses him again. Gabriel would almost think it were a dream if the door didn’t glide open at that very moment to reveal Dr. Ziegler with a tray in her hands. “Oh!” she says, and backs out quickly.

Gabriel sits straight up again, covering his mouth. Jack gestures, chuckling. “Come on in, Angela. I am still starving.”

She enters with an embarrassed smile. “I apologize. I should have knocked.”

“I’ll forgive you if you set that tray down.”

Dr. Ziegler obeys, sliding the table out in front of Jack. He grabs two pieces of toast and immediately shoves them in his mouth. “Oh, thank Christ,” he mumbles.

Gabriel grins and sits back. Dr. Ziegler looks up. “Gabriel, I trust you are feeling…replenished?”

“Yeah, I am.”

“Good. I am hopeful with some further study, and with the knowledge I have gained since I first introduced those machines into you, that we may find a way to avoid this unpleasant matter entirely in the future.”

Gabriel shuts his eyes a moment. “That would be…a relief.”

“Excellent.” She clasps her hands together. “Then I shall leave you two be. Only call on me if you need anything.”

Her exit is graceful if hurried. Jack’s hand is resting on the table so Gabriel reaches out and takes it. Always a little strange to feel things again after his nerves recover from their disintegration. Stranger now because he’s holding Jack’s hand, which is something he’s daydreamed about a thousand times but this time it’s actually happening.

Jack swallows. “You’re gonna stay, right?”

“Yeah, I’m gonna stay.”

“Mm.” He’s already shoveling more scrambled eggs into his mouth.

Gabriel sits there and watches him stuff his face. Hasn’t even begun getting used to that odd lightness in the back of his mind—in place of absence a desire to be here. To see what comes next.

He’s got a lot to make up for, especially to the rest of Overwatch, the organization that betrayed him, that he betrayed. But he’s got Jack again.

Whatever comes, he’ll weather it. They both will.


End file.
